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  Special thanks to Graham Edwards

  For M. K.

  PROLOGUE

  Weighed down by the thick iron boots, Kalia’s feet dragged on the cobbles. Heavy iron gauntlets enclosed her hands. Metal chains ran from these and into the hands of the two legionnaires who were escorting her along the corridor.

  They have done this because they are afraid of me, she told herself.

  One of the chains pulled tight, yanking painfully at her arm. Kalia almost fell, but recovered and stumbled on.

  But I am not afraid of you, she thought.

  She almost believed it.

  The soldiers, dressed all in black, soft-soled and silent, had come for her in the middle of the night. They’d clamped the metal gloves and boots over her hands and feet before she’d been fully awake.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she’d demanded as they’d hauled her from her bed.

  Saying nothing, the legionnaires had shoved her through the door and into the hallway beyond.

  “When the king hears of this . . .” she’d started to say. Then, seeing the savage amusement on their faces, she’d stopped.

  Brutan will learn of this soon enough. Until then, I will do nothing to provoke them.

  They dragged her through the secret ways of Castle Tor, avoiding the public passages and keeping to the narrow tunnels hidden deep within the massive stone walls. They held her arms tight, wrenching her shoulders with every turn. As she plunged deeper into darkness, Kalia’s fear bloomed like a sick, black rose.

  Soon the cobbles gave way to flint flagstones. Kalia’s iron boots scraped along, creating sparks that flickered on the tunnel walls. After two more painful turns, the tunnel ended at a wide arch plugged by a stout wooden door. Etched into the timbers was an image of a crown with three points.

  The crown of Toronia.

  The crown of the king.

  He sent them! Brutan sent them! And now he’s waiting behind that door, waiting for his prize!

  “I would have come,” she said. “If you’d told me the king wanted to see me, I would have come willingly. Why would I not?”

  She tossed back her disheveled red-gold hair, hoping she sounded defiant. Yet dread congealed in the pit of her stomach. . . . Why did Brutan have them snatch her from her bed? Why have her brought to him in chains?

  The answer hit her like a blow to the stomach. Her heart faltered in her chest.

  He has found my children. My triplets. And when he has shown them to me, he is going to kill them!

  She bit her lip to stifle the scream.

  “It’s better if you don’t talk,” growled the first legionnaire from beneath his black hood. “Just do as you’re told. It’ll go better that way.”

  “When the king commands, even the king’s mistress obeys,” said the second legionnaire. His lip curled in a sneer.

  Kalia flinched. Her status was common knowledge throughout Toronia; everyone knew that Castle Tor was home to the king, the queen . . . and Kalia. The three of them.

  Three was a powerful number. And it held a special place in Kalia’s heart.

  My three! Oh, my children!

  “Please, won’t you tell me . . . ?” she began, but it was too late. While one legionnaire shoved open the giant door, the second hustled her into the chamber beyond.

  She stumbled forward. There was no sound but the dull clang of her metal boots against the stone floor. She kept her head down, unwilling to look at what she knew must lie ahead.

  After twenty paces, her guards brought her roughly to a halt. A cold hand gripped her chin and forced her head up. Summoning all her strength, she held it steady and stared straight into the eyes of King Brutan.

  The king was seated on a simple wooden throne, slightly raised on a platform of oak. Beside him, on a matching chair, sat Queen Magritt. Despite the lateness of the hour, both wore the full ceremonial regalia of Toronia: red robes and gold chains.

  “Kalia,” said the king. “So good of you to come.”

  The words were sweet, but his voice rumbled like thunder. His cheeks—usually red—were pale. His whole face seemed hard and blunt, and Kalia had the sudden, dizzying sensation that topping those luxuriant robes was the head not of a man but of an animal.

  “I would have come willingly,” she said, “had you but asked.”

  “I didn’t,” Brutan grunted. Wordplay had never been his strong point; he was a man of action. Being around him was like courting an unruly bear, and that had always frightened Kalia. Yet sitting beside this brute was someone who frightened her even more.

  “Welcome, dear,” said Magritt. The venom in her voice was in complete contrast to the smile on her lips, and therein lay her power.

  When you came right down to it, bears were simple creatures.

  Magritt, however, was a snake.

  From behind Kalia came the sound of footsteps, many of them. She heard the creak of leather and the clatter of arms. Soldiers, she guessed, forming ranks behind her.

  She cast her gaze to the sides of the room, knowing there was no escape but seeking it anyway. This was the Undersalle, the chamber that lay directly beneath the great throne room of Castle Tor. Like the throne room, it was long and broad, dominated at one end by the royal platform. Unlike the throne room, it was dark, lit only by flickering torches set in black sconces on the walls. The ceiling pressed down.

  Kalia wondered how many criminals had faced their fate in this court of judgment. How many had protested their innocence. How many had begged for their lives.

  How many had been put to death.

  I will not beg.

  Silence had fallen once more. Kalia glanced around and saw exactly what she’d expected to see: an entire legion of Brutan’s guard—one hundred men, armed and alert in their bronze armor, no doubt with orders to keep her here until the king’s business with her was concluded.

  In the Undersalle, that could mean only one kind of business.

  “Traitor!” Brutan shouted, rising suddenly from the throne. “You lied to me! All along, you lied!”

  “How so, my liege?” said Kalia. She hoped the formal address might soothe his anger.

  It did not.

  “First you said you were carrying one child. But there were three.” Foam splashed from Brutan’s mouth onto his bushy beard. “Three, as was foretold by the prophecy. The prophecy!”

  “But the triplets were yours, my liege. Your blood.”

  “My blood is what they would have spilled!”

  “They were stillborn. What possible threat could a dead child be to a king?”

  “Do you deny the words of the prophecy? ‘Beneath these fresh celestial lights, three new heirs will enter in. They shall summon unknown power. They shall kill the cursed king.’ The three stars appeared in the sky that very night, Kalia. Who knows what other dark magic was afoot? Do you think me stupid?”

  Maybe not. But if ever there was a cursed king, it was you, Brutan!

  Aloud she said, as calmly as she could, “Three years have passed since the three stars appeared in the sky, my lord. Nothing bad has happened since. The prophecy has not come to pass. There is no danger.”

  “Oh, but there is danger, my dear,” said Magritt from her throne. Her voice was as silky as her husband’s was coarse. Still that maddening smile played upon her lips. �
�The danger is you.”

  Kalia snorted. “Danger? You had me brought here in shackles! What possible threat could I be to you?”

  “You know very well why you wear the iron,” Magritt replied.

  “It is to stop your magic, you damned witch!” shouted Brutan, stepping off the platform and planting his meaty hands on his hips. His face was flushed, and his eyes gleamed, as did the sweat on his brow.

  It was true. As long as Kalia’s hands and feet were enclosed in the cold, unyielding metal, she couldn’t use her powers. Even had they been free, she doubted her abilities would have aided her in this abominable place, in the presence of so many armed men. Like the earth and air that drove it, her magic was soft and subtle, made not for confrontation but for love.

  Yet their fear of her talents gave her strength.

  “I abandoned my magic years ago, as well you know,” she said. She found Magritt’s gaze and held it. “I put it aside for my king.”

  “Liar!” yelled Brutan. “You cast spells to hide the truth. You say the babies were dead? I say different. I say that when I came into your bedchamber that night, you tricked my eyes into thinking the children—the three children—were dead. You even fooled the wizard, faithful Melchior.”

  If only you knew, Kalia thought. It was Melchior who had fooled the king. She wondered what Brutan would do if he discovered the wizard’s loyalty was not to him but to the very prophecy that predicted his downfall.

  She glanced around again, this time looking at the door through which she’d been dragged. She willed Melchior to walk through it.

  But Melchior did not come.

  “The triplets are as dead now as they were on that day,” she said, tasting the bitterness of the words. “Why would you say otherwise?”

  Brutan wiped spittle from his beard with the back of his hand. Spinning on his heel—for a big man he was surprisingly agile—he snapped his fingers at one of the two legionnaires who’d brought Kalia to the Undersalle.

  “Bring him out!” he roared.

  Kalia’s heart stopped. Bring him? Bring who?

  Numb, she waited as the legionnaire retreated into the shadows behind the two thrones. Waited with dreadful anticipation for the man to emerge again carrying a three-year-old child.

  Will it be Tarlan? Or Agulphus?

  The legionnaire returned dragging not a child but a bedraggled tramp. Kalia’s shoulders sagged with relief. The man’s clothes were rags and his greasy hair was clotted with filth. His eyes rolled and his lips mumbled. When the legionnaire released him, he swayed, barely able to hold himself upright.

  Kalia’s relief turned rapidly to puzzlement as she wondered who this man might be.

  King Brutan regarded the tramp with undisguised contempt, but Magritt rose smoothly from her throne. “Kalia,” she said, “may I introduce you to Sir Brax? He has quite a story to tell. Quite a story.”

  Kalia’s hands tried to clench, but the restricting gauntlets prevented her from making a fist. Sir Brax! You were Melchior’s ally. Which of my children did he give you to look after?

  As she stared at the tramp, her horror mounted. It was impossible to imagine anyone less suited to caring for a child. She tightened the muscles in her face, resisting the urge to scream at him.

  What have you done with my baby?

  The legionnaire prodded Sir Brax with the hilt of his sword. After a brief pause—during which Kalia was convinced the wretched man would throw up—Sir Brax began to speak.

  “We were each given a babe,” he said, his words slurred with drink. “Mine was a boy. Castle, we rode away from the castle. Me and the babe.”

  Kalia leaned forward, desperate to decipher his muddled speech.

  “Kept to the back trails . . .” Sir Brax mumbled. “Tavern in Isur . . .” His chin lolled to his chest and the legionnaire gave him another prod. He looked up, his eyes glazed. “Safekeeping, away from the king. . . . Secret . . . secret at all costs.” Then: “His name—his name, it was . . .”

  Kalia’s blood ran cold.

  “Go on,” growled the legionnaire, giving him a shake.

  Sir Brax squinted. “Name was . . . Allus, maybe? Aphullus?”

  Agulphus! thought Kalia with a sudden surge that was part triumph, part terror. That’s his name! My Gulph. My poor little Gulph!

  Sir Brax’s ramblings petered out and a flicker of hope sparked within Kalia.

  If they don’t know his name, they can’t find him.

  Brutan had turned away. He stood with his fists bunched, and his big bear’s body trembled from head to foot. Magritt’s smile never wavered.

  “Poor Sir Brax,” she said. “His mind is rotted with drink. Now, Kalia, to whom did you give the other children? And will you tell us, before the end?”

  Before the end!

  Magritt’s words rang like cracked chimes through Kalia’s thoughts. So they meant to kill her after all. Bringing her here, to the Undersalle, had not been about hearing her story, nor even allowing her to hear Sir Brax’s.

  They’ve already decided my fate, she thought. Nothing I say could make any difference.

  She felt something wrench inside her. Now she’d never see her children again—never see them overthrow their father and take the crown, never see their destiny fulfilled. Hot tears rose to her eyes, but she forced them back.

  They can kill me, Kalia thought, but that doesn’t mean they’ve won.

  She squared her shoulders. The weight of the iron gauntlets was almost unbearable, yet she lifted them all the same, spreading her arms wide.

  “Look at me, Brutan,” she said quietly.

  For a moment he didn’t move. Then, slowly, with infinite menace, he turned. His face was a dark knot of fury.

  “Final words, Kalia?” he said. “If so, make them brief. I am sick of the sight of you.”

  “You tell me my children live,” Kalia proclaimed, willing her voice to rise up from this dark and dreadful place, wishing her words up and out into the night, where all who roamed beneath the stars might hear them. “I tell you it is true. My babies lived then, and they live still, and their lives have but one purpose: to see the death of you!”

  Brutan’s lip curled. “I knew it was true! I will track them down. As for you—you will be silent!”

  “I will not! What kind of monster are you that you see your own children as creatures to be hunted and killed? What kind of monster puts his one remaining child—a boy of six—behind bars lest he prove traitor?”

  “Silence, I said!”

  “As Prince Nynus lies forgotten inside the Vault of Heaven, so your heart lies forgotten too! And as for your precious Toronia, was there any king who brought more suffering, more cruelty to his realm?”

  Hauling the iron boots over the floor, she took two faltering steps toward him. Although her arms shook, suddenly the weight they bore seemed to feed her strength. Never mind that her magic was muted; she still had her voice.

  “Do my children live? Yes! Will they see the prophecy fulfilled? Yes, and yes! They will end you, Brutan. I know it! You know it! All of Toronia knows it! The crown of three will once more find its proper place. And you? You will be gone from this world, as if you had never been here. None will mourn you, Brutan. And none will remember you!”

  “SILENCE!”

  Brutan drew his sword and advanced on Kalia, his voice crashing over her like a wave. She endured it, holding her ground as she awaited the killing blow. Reaching her, the king thrust the blade against her throat and bared his yellow teeth in her face.

  “You will die, Kalia!”

  For a long, agonizing moment she waited.

  Then, hands shaking, Brutan lowered his sword and dropped it back into its sheath.

  “A witch you are, and as a witch you will die,” he growled. “Not for you the clean dispatch of the blade. For you, Kalia, the end will be slow.” A scowl distorted his flushed and sweating face. “You will burn.”

  Behind him, still seated on her throne, Queen
Magritt nodded once, her smooth face creased only by a tiny, satisfied smile.

  The same two legionnaires who’d dragged Kalia from her bedchamber now marched her into the small yard that lay behind the Undersalle. It was set deep below the towering walls of Castle Tor. Kalia felt like she was at the bottom of a square, stone well.

  In the center of the yard, a wooden stake rose from a pile of wood and straw.

  I am going to die. The thought brought no fear, only a desperate ache.

  The legionnaires lifted her onto the pyre. One of them pulled her arms behind her, wrapping them around the stake; the other tied her wrists together. The metal gauntlets felt as heavy as the world. Wood splintered beneath her iron-clad feet. The rest of the Legion filed into the yard, spreading out to line its walls. She was trapped inside a ring of bronze.

  Brutan lit the pyre in silence, plunging a flaming torch deep into its wooden interior. He glared at Kalia as he did so. She returned his gaze with what she hoped was a look of defiance.

  The king stepped away and the flames caught fast, rising into the night. Kalia waited for the pain, but it didn’t come.

  Why doesn’t it hurt? she thought. But it didn’t matter. Inside she was in agony.

  She tilted her head back, stared up past the confining walls to the night sky, far above. Three stars shone there: one green, one red, one gold. The prophecy stars.

  My children’s stars, she thought as smoke closed over them, erasing them from view. What will become of my three?

  She would never know.

  Sudden movement caught her eye: someone on a stone ledge, high above. A yellow robe, white hair.

  Melchior!

  The wizard was looking down at her, a look of infinite sorrow on his wrinkled face. He teetered, his bare feet planted wide, and for a moment Kalia thought he would fall from the ledge. He steadied himself with his staff, gripping it with his gnarled hands. His fingers were moving over the runes she knew were carved into its surface; his lips were moving too. Kalia tried to make out what he was saying, but she couldn’t see the words.

  Then she realized they weren’t words at all.